Part of the magic of traveling is going to places that no-one ever goes and for me Sri Lanka was on that list, it’s one of those forgotten places, overshadowed by a larger neighbour. It was only when I started talking to people about going that I heard about friends of friends who’d been there, and on their honeymoon too! Not quite the undiscovered land I’d been hoping for!
For years civil war has torn apart the island of Sri Lanka, then a few years ago peace happened, or at least the fighting stopped for a while. It was during this lull 3 years ago that I took a trip to the little tear-shaped island.
It wasn’t as quiet as I’d expected it to be. With the Tamils behaving themselves the rest of the population got back to fighting and hating each other, we got there just a day or two before the election. There were two main groupings, one supporting the president and the other supporting the prime minister and they really hated each other.
We were on a bus that had a picture of the prime minister inside, along the way we were passed by a convoy supporting the president and the whole bus just went quiet…
At the previous election there were battles between supporters of the two groups, even a riot. They were expecting the same sort of behaviour this time around so there was some tension in the air. We got out of Colombo the moment we arrived, to stay in the countryside while the election was going on and avoid the main trouble spot
The people were lovely and friendly. You didn’t get the same type of hassle as you would in other countries, sellers would stop hassling you after your first polite refusal, it was quite pleasant. Despite all the tension I never felt at danger, I got the feeling that if we were ever caught up in the middle of trouble the locals would lift us up and carry us away from the trouble as fast as possible…..
